Production Engineer Apprentice
IMPELLAM GROUP PLC
Ibstock (LE67 6HS)
Closes in 12 days (Monday 18 May 2026 at 11:59pm)
Posted on 6 May 2026
Contents
Summary
This apprenticeship offers structured development, real responsibility and exposure across the full brick manufacturing process - from raw material preparation through to forming, drying and firing - while building strong foundations in production engineering, quality and continuous improvement.
- Wage
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£30,000 a year
Check minimum wage rates (opens in new tab)
You may be offered an incremental, performance-related increase at nine months to £32,000.
- Training course
- Improvement specialist (level 5)
- Hours
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Monday - Friday, 8.00am - 4.00pm/9.00am - 5.00pm.
37 hours 30 minutes a week
- Start date
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Tuesday 1 September 2026
- Duration
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1 year 2 months
- Positions available
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2
Work
Most of your apprenticeship is spent working. You’ll learn on the job by getting hands-on experience.
What you'll do at work
As a Graduate Production Engineer Apprentice, you’ll work closely with production, engineering and maintenance teams to support safe, efficient and high‑quality manufacturing operations. Your responsibilities will include:
- Supporting day‑to‑day manufacturing activities and assisting in analysing production performance
- Helping identify opportunities to improve efficiency, throughput and reliability
- Assisting with trials, process improvements and new product or process introductions
- Supporting the development and maintenance of standard operating procedures and work instructions
- Participating in quality checks and investigations into quality issues or non‑conformances
- Contributing to continuous improvement projects using Manufacturing System principles
- Supporting data collection, reporting and basic performance analysis
- Promoting a strong safety‑first culture and working in full compliance with Health, Safety and Environmental standards
Where you'll work
Leicester Road
Ibstock
LE67 6HS
Training
Apprenticeships include time away from working for specialist training. You’ll study to gain professional knowledge and skills.
Training provider
RAISE THE BAR LIMITED
Training course
Improvement specialist (level 5)
Understanding apprenticeship levels (opens in new tab)
What you'll learn
Course contents
- Leading improvement teams: Holding team members/stakeholders to account for delivering agreed actions within an improvement project and building/maintaining appropriate stakeholder relationships inside and outside the organisation to deliver improvement project objectives
- Strategic Deployment of Continuous Improvement: Contribute to deployment of improvement strategy, participating as an active member of the improvement community
- Communication: Prepare and present concise proposals and plans. Capture and share progress through effective formats and channels. Use and handle questions effectively. Build rapport with others.
- Capability Development: Train, facilitate and critique the application of tools used by improvement practitioners including tool-selection, links between tools, how they are used within a structured method, analsysis of results and presentation of recommendations
- Project planning: Plan and manage finances, multi-stakeholder delivery and benefits realisation
- Change planning: Design reinforcement, engagement and communication strategies
- Principles and Methods for Improvement: Guide others on the selection of appropriate methods (eg. Practical Problem Solving, Define-Measure-Analyse-Improve-Control, 8-Disciplines, Identify-Define-Optimise-Verify) to deliver improvements. Conduct gateway assessments to ensure suitability of projects to progress
- Project selection & scope: Guides others on the selection and scoping of improvement projects and the intial response to product/process performance issues. Identify, scope and prioritise improvement opportunities that map to high-level organisation objectives and key value-streams
- Process mapping & analysis: Guide others on the selection of appropriate process mapping and analysis tools. Critique improved state
- Lean tools: Identify and analyse value-streams using appropriate methods and tools to optimise flow to customer. Develop a plan for Lean deployment within the organisation including effective and relevant performance metrics
- Measurement: Guide others on the planning, analysis and interpretation of data collection & measurement studies including the design of tests to recreate failures & steps to diagnose/reduce short & long-term measurement variation
- Statistics & measures: Confirm data and fit for a range distribution models. Establish predictions. Calculate confidence intervals
- Data analysis-statistical methods: Model random behaviour and make inferences with levels of confidence. Calculate/recommend sample size. Test hypotheses for all data types. Assess input/output correlation. Generate, analyse and interpret simple and multiple predictive relationship models
- Process capability & performance: Identify data stability/distribution issues and apply appropriate strategies to enable robust Capability Analysis. Analyse life data to establish rates and patterns
- Root cause analysis: Make appropriate use of data to assess contribution of critical inputs/root cause(s) to product/process performance using appropriate graphical and statistical tools to draw and coomunicate conclusions
- Experimentation & optimisation: Guide others on the planning, analysis and interpretation of experiments. Plan,conduct, analyse and optimise both full & fractional experiments
- Data analysis – Statistical Process Control: Monitor and asses ongoing process variation and changes through chart-selection, control-limit setting, sample sizing/frequency and control-rules
- Benchmarking: Guide others on benchmarking to support all stages of improvement projects including future-state design
- Failure mode avoidance: Decompose complex systems in order to define main functions. Anaylse system interactions. Cascade knowledge through fault tree analysis. Create and assess design rules, standards & verification methods. Complete robustness studies to select appropriate control strategies and detection methods
- Sustainability & control: Guide others on control and sustainability planning including methods and tools to maintain benefits, extraction of learning, replication, sharing and consolidation of new knowledge into organisational learning
Training schedule
Improvement Specialist Level 5.
Requirements
Essential qualifications
Degree in:
Desirable qualifications
Degree in:
Share if you have other relevant qualifications and industry experience. The apprenticeship can be adjusted to reflect what you already know.
Skills
- Communication skills
- Attention to detail
- Organisation skills
- Problem solving skills
- Administrative skills
- Number skills
- Analytical skills
- Logical
Other requirements
You must hold a UK driving licence and have access to a car for this role.
- Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills
- Proactive, hands‑on approach with a willingness to learn
- Good communication skills and ability to work effectively in a team environment
- High regard for safety, quality and continuous improvement
About this employer
At Impellam, we believe work should have purpose. For over a decade, we’ve connected passionate individuals with meaningful opportunities across the STEM industries. We’re trusted by employers and employees alike and we’re here to help you grow and thrive.
After this apprenticeship
What you’ll gain:
- Structured learning and development aligned to our graduate objectives
- Hands‑on experience across all stages of brick manufacturing
- Exposure to production, engineering, maintenance, quality and continuous improvement teams
- Regular feedback and support from experienced site professionals
- The opportunity to build a long‑term career within a leading UK manufacturer
Ask a question
The contact for this apprenticeship is:
RAISE THE BAR LIMITED
The reference code for this apprenticeship is VAC2000030107.
Apply now
Closes in 12 days (Monday 18 May 2026 at 11:59pm)